30 Unknown Facts About Leonard Blavatnik That You Probably Didn't Know

15 May 2019, 12:02 pm EDT By Ruby Karnick

Len Blavatnik, one of the wealthiest people in the United Kingdom, is known to have made his fortune through his conglomerate company, Access Industries, through diversified investments in myriad companies. Here are some really interesting facts about the Soviet-born British-American businessman:

Blavatnik was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in the 2017 Birthday Honours for services to philanthropy, and is also a member of the Legion d'Honneur.
He is known to have supported many cultural and philanthropic institutions over the last two decades, including the British Museum, Tate Modern, Royal Opera House, National Portrait Gallery and Museum of Modern Art.
Through his Family Foundation, he has been supporting the Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists, along with the New York Academy of Sciences. The said award recognizes the accomplishments of outstanding young scientists in life sciences, physical sciences and engineering.
In the year 2010, he, along with his Family Foundation, donated £75 million to the University of Oxford to establish a new school of government, which till date, stands as one of the largest philanthropic gifts in the university's 900-year history.
He is known to sponsor a Colel Chabad 20,000-square-foot (1,900 m2) food bank and warehouse in Kiryat Malakhi, Israel, which reportedly sends monthly food shipments to 5,000 poor families in 25 Israeli cities. Through this food bank, he also sends food before Jewish holidays to 30,000 families in 73 Israeli cities, towns and villages.
He, through his foundation, donated $50 million to Harvard University, in an effort to sponsor life sciences entrepreneurship at the university.
Following this, he also named the first five HBS graduates to receive the Blavatnik Fellowship in Life Science Entrepreneurship, in the year 2013.
He reportedly donated around $200 million from the Blavatnik's foundation to Harvard Medical School to sponsor research, investments in data science, and the creation of subsidized lab space for biotech startups in the year 2018.
He is a supporter of the US Republican Party, and is said to have donated a total of $7.35 million to six Republican political candidates, including South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, Florida Senator Marco Rubio and Arizona Senator John McCain.
Blavatnik, along with his wife Emily, have reportedly made donations to Democratic Party candidates Kamala Harris, Chuck Schumer, Andrew Cuomo and Hillary Clinton.

In the year 2011, he reportedly donated to both President Barack Obama and his GOP rival, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney.
He donated over $1 million to an anti-Donald Trump GOP group, in February 2016, and later in April 2016, he donated $1 million to the committee for the inauguration of Donald Trump.
He was mentioned in investigations led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller into Russian donations to Trump administration, when two senior Trump administration officials went on record as being lobbyists for Blavatnik’s Access Industries in the year 2017.
He founded Access Industries, an international conglomerate company in the year 1986, and is till date serving as the chairman and president of the company.
He is married to Emily Appelson Blavatnik, and has four children, including daughter Laila. The family currently resides in a grade II listed building in Kensington Palace Gardens which is valued at £200 million.
He is a longtime friend and business partner of Ukrainian-born Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg. He is also a friend of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
He, along with Vekselberg, formed the Renova investment vehicle, and then the two joined with Mikhail Fridman's Alfa Group to form the AAR venture.
He is said to serve as one of the board of directors of TNK-BP, one of Russia's largest oil companies, as well as the UC Rusal, the world's largest aluminum producer.
Sir Leonard "Len" Blavatnik was born on June 14, 1957 in Odessa, Soviet Ukraine, to a Jewish family. It was in the year 1978, that the family emigrated from the Soviet Union to the United States.
He first attended Moscow State University of Railway Engineering, but was not able to complete his coursework due to the family's request for emigration visas.

Following the family's move to United States, he graduated with a masters in computer science from Columbia University and an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1989.
He is a member of the Global Advisory Board of the Centre for International Business and Management at Cambridge University.
He also sits in the board of Dean's Advisors at the Harvard Business School, as well as the academic board at Tel Aviv University.
In the year 2016, Blavatnik launched Access Entertainment, which reportedly bought James Packer's stake in RatPac Entertainment and the following year, a 24.9% stake in Bad Wolf.
He was said to be a front runner in the bidding to purchase Britain’s third oldest theatre, the Theatre Royal Haymarket, with a bid of around £40 million in April 2018.
His company Access Industries was reported to be one of the bidders for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in early 2010. The next year, through his company, he acquired the Warner Music Group for $3.3 billion.
He is an early investor in Rocket Internet and has reportedly paid $115 million for wireless spectrum in Norway in the year 2013.
He has also invested in Beats Music, and is also know to have supported the Fashion designer Tory Burch financially.
He owns AI Film, the independent film and production company which is said to have backed Lee Daniels’ film "The Butler" as well as the summer 2015 release "Mr. Holmes."
He got into a legal battle with JPMorgan Chase, suing Morgan after losing $100 million by allegedly following Morgan's advice three years earlier to buy mortgage securities with AAA credit ratings, in the year 2010.